So, RvW, are you implying that here in the good ol' USA--ranked 37th in the world on healthcare,
I am now intending to hijack this thread, but this ranking pisses me off. Here are the criteria that the WHO uses to rank countries healthcare. If you look at the criteria you will see that they favor socialized systems HEAVILY!
Five factors went into WHO's calculation:
• Health level, as defined by a measure of life expectancy, which shows how healthy a country's population is. This factor gets a 25 percent weight.
• Responsiveness, which includes factors such as speed of health services, privacy protections, choice of doctors and quality of amenities. This factor gets a 12.5 percent weight.
• Financial fairness, which measures how progressive or regressive the financing of a country's health care system is — that is, whether or not the financial burdens are borne by those who are economically better off. This factor receives a 25 percent weight.
• Health distribution, which measures how equally a nation's health care resources are allocated among the population. This factor receives a 25 percent weight.
• Responsiveness distribution, which measures how equally a nation's health care responsiveness (which we defined above) is spread through society. This factor gets a 12.5 percent weight.